Dear Editor,
We refer to your article published August 22, 2019. We would draw your attention to the fact that this matter is now sub judice and that there are legal restrictions on what should be published to avoid prejudicing the outcome of the trial. In particular, we ask you to consider whether it is appropriate and lawful to speculate on the motives of the defendants as you did in this article.

Attribution of the motive to the police does not exonerate the newspaper of a duty of care in reporting, not least because the police are an interested party to the proceedings. The same duty of care extends to the comments you moderate and allow readers to post on your website. The facts will become clearer as the trial proceeds. At the heart of this case is a dispute over a valuable piece of real estate property. Ganga Krishna, one of the two defendants, who is in fact a simple mechanic (and not a ‘city businessman’) inherited the property from his father who had purchased it several decades previously.

The property has been in a dilapidated state for many years as Ganga lacked the means to keep it in good repair. However, due to its prime location on the corner or Robb and King Streets in the heart of Georgetown, the property is now believed to be worth in excess of one million USD. It has also been the subject of intense efforts to appropriate ownership of it from Ganga going back many years.

Jeffrey Thomas, the former PNC Home Affairs Minister under Forbes Burnham, had been one of Ganga’s tenant in the property but had stopped paying rent several years ago. He unlawfully allowed his brother, Hilrod Thomas, one of the three victims of the fire, to occupy the top floor of the property. Ganga took Thomas to court where Thomas then claimed he owned the property outright through adverse possession. Thomas, in fact, sold the property to businessman John Pyneandy without title who then used it as commercial premises. John Pyneandy is illegally letting out the premises to traders presently, and earning millions, since the tragedy of the deaths.

The day immediately after a court ruling that allowed Ganga to oppose Thomas’ claim, Ganga was arrested by the police. This was in January 2016, nearly two full years after the fire and after he has been cleared from an identity parade in 2014. His accuser was a drug addict who suddenly came forward. We ask you to consider whether the timing was merely coincidental. We ask you also to consider whether it is possible Thomas would, as a former PNC Home Affairs Minister, have any influence with the Georgetown police department. Finally, we ask whether John Pyneandy and Jeffrey Thomas both had motives then to ensure the property’s rightful owner was incarcerated and thus unable to defend properly his title to the property. John Pyneandy has been declared bankrupt before unlawfully occupying the premises. Finally, it should be borne in mind this was the second fire at the property. There is no forensic evidence to establish the fire was caused by arson. The unlawful occupiers burned candles as they had been disconnected from the National Grid for lack of payment. This fact came to light in the Preliminary Inquiry. This case has much to say about justice, corruption, and power in Guyana. There is a real risk, a terrible miscarriage of justice may occur. Please do not aid this to happen by allowing biased reporting and biased commenting to affect public opinion – and potentially the jurors in this case.

Regards
E. Whitehea